an everything art and design blog

Category: Exercises

I have always avoided drawing people, well, in particular; their eyes, lips…noses… basically the whole entire face. And unfortunately this week was all about portraits in my drawing course. I was completely terrified, but after my professor explained some simple rules of drawing faces, I was eager to try.

Portrait Practice – Charcoal on 18X24″ Newsprint

She eased us into it by putting dramatic lighting on our live models so they would be easier to draw. I kept starting over so I wasn’t able to complete a full portrait but every time I restarted I learned something new about drawing faces so i don’t regret it.

First progress shot

Second progress shot

Charcoal on 12×18″ Newsprint

That night I went home and practiced on an image I found online… I was completely amazed by my progress in one day.

We were assigned the task of creating an interesting shoe composition using 18×24″ drawing paper and woodless pencils.

My first attempt was in class, I was satisfied with the shading but after our lesson on movement, I felt like the composition was static, the eyes don’t wander around the drawing.

Attempt One

So I had a second go at it. I liked the triangle my composition created but I had misjudged how much room would be left at the bottom of the composition and how close the stiletto was to the top.

Attempt Two

It kept bothering me until I finally did it again- third time’s the charm, right? Well, in this case it was! I was able to combine my lesson on movement and composition to feel a significant improvement with the final product.

I finally pulled the trigger on something I’ve always wanted to do while I am still enrolled at Parsons, School of Design… I finally took a drawing course. At first, it was very intimidating but luckily the majority of people in my class are also just beginners or hobbyist and not fine arts majors.

I had a particularly interesting lesson that I wanted to share with all of you on figure and movement. We had a nude model, charcoal and 18×24 newsprint and were told to draw what we saw. So this is the result of my first go at it.

Nude Figure Attempt One

After the exercise we had our lecture on how to convey movement and energy, what does that mean? Using the inner line and cross contour versus outlining the body. This was my second attempt.